Megan Taplin

The new manager of the Knysna section of the Garden Route National Park tells us about the challenges her team has faced since the wildfires last year.

- Suzaan Hall

Where does your love of the outdoors come from?

I grew up in Cape Town and my love of nature was fed by trips to my grandfather’s smallholding at the foot of the Helderberg Mountains in Somerset West, where we went on long walks and watched birds and insects going about their daily lives.

I was always concerned about the environ ment and about trying to save it from destruction. This felt like an insurmountable task as a child, but now as an adult it has been broken down into more realistic and manageable portions – I hope!

What does your day-to-day job entail?

As an area manager, I am responsible for managing biodiversity, cultural heritage assets, the people who work in my area, the stakeholders who have an interest in the area and the financial and administrative business of conservation.

The Knysna area incorporates the Knysna estuary and the forest – both indigenous forest and “exit areas”, where plan tations have been cleared and handed over to SANParks to revert back to their natural state.

What challenges did you face after the Knysna fire?

Some burnt parts are now bare slopes. Sediment runs off these slopes when we get rain and enters the estuary. This creates water-quality problems and affects the organisms in the estuary. The build-up of sediment on underwater plants impedes their growth, for example.